Leaving tomorrow morning

We're all packed, my practice is shut down, I've prepared some for when we get home all in about a week. It is really and interesting wonderful scary feeling to be doing all of this...God is making/growing our family.
I was feeling a sense of fear earlier this week about taking such a huge risk, going to Ethiopia and meeting the kids before they are officially "ours", knowing we have to get through a court date that is often rescheduled and an embassy date that could also be delayed due to some paperwork expiring soon. I do still feel some of this nervousness but this is normal, a normal feeling to something that is huge both because it is somewhat risky but also because if it does all happen like we hope we will be a family of 4 instead of 2. Anyway I was reading about Jacob in Genesis this week and how he didn't want to send his sons back to Egypt, he especially didn't want to send his youngest Benjamin because he had already lost 2 sons and the thought of loosing another terrified him. Anyway he eventually allowed them to go, all of his sons, to Egypt saying "as for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved". He accepted that the risk was great but it was worth it to save his family from the famine in Canon. What he didn't know is that when they returned they brought home not only food and Simeon who was left as assurance, but news that his other son who he thought had died years ago, Joseph, was alive and was running Egypt. What if he hadn't allowed his sons to go?
Somehow this story encouraged me. He was scared but he accepted that the risk was worth it. I think it is for us too-it is worth it to meet them as soon as we can, it is worth it to be in the country for at least a month and absorb the culture, it is worth it to potentially have all that time, just the four of us before we get home and Sean goes back to work.
Anyway here we go! Off to Ethiopia, what an adventure, what a gift to be able to spend time in such a different place, the birthplace of our children.